The Don Lost His Little Orphan Chapter 02

The Don Lost His Little Orphan Chapter 02

The dinner was in the glass pool hall.

I didn’t want to go, but the elder Mrs. Moretti sent for me, and I couldn’t refuse.

It was the most beautiful room in the Moretti estate, and the most suffocating. The winter pool glowed blue under the glass dome, the sea pitch black beyond. Inside, the heat pressed down like a weight.

The men talked in low voices—ports, weapons, routes, ledgers. The women held champagne and smiled sharp, polished smiles.

I took the farthest corner, eating cold dessert.

Nico sat at the head of the table. Several capos and family associates surrounded him, waiting for him to lift his eyes before they spoke. The whole table went quiet whenever he set down his glass.

“I heard Don Moretti isn’t engaged.” A politician’s daughter swirled her wine, smiling gracefully. “My father thinks the Cross family and the Moretti Family could have a deeper partnership.”

Nico held his glass, his knuckles white.

He looked up lazily. “I’m not a clean man. Not fit to drag some good family’s daughter into my world.”

He turned her down.

The smile on the girl’s face froze for a second, then smoothed back into place.

I looked down at my plate, my chest tightened. I stood and slipped out quietly.

The terrace outside the pool hall was freezing.

I just wanted some air to clear my head.

But as I reached the pool, I came face to face with that same girl. Vivienne Cross. The Cross family’s eldest daughter.

She wanted Nico. Everyone in New York’s underworld knew it.

“Well, well. Sienna.” Vivienne looked me up and down, her contempt undisguised. “Not inside? What, happy Nico turned down the engagement? Hiding out here to celebrate?”

I stepped back to give her space.

“Miss Cross, you’ve misunderstood.”

I didn’t want to fight.

But she blocked me, her voice low and sweet with champagne and malice.

“Let me warn you. Know your place.”

She leaned closer, red lips curving.

“You’re just some stray Nico picked up off the street. The Moretti estate took you in for seven years, but that doesn’t mean you get to be the lady of this house.”

I looked up at her.

“If you want Nico so badly, go win him yourself. Taking it out on me just makes you look pathetic.”

Vivienne’s face went purple.

She shoved me hard.

“You dare talk back to me?”

My foot slipped.

And then the freezing water closed over my head.

The winter pool was like a blue freezer, the cold digging into my bones. I couldn’t swim. I thrashed, water flooding my throat.

A few gasps came from the edge, but no one jumped in.

In the Moretti estate, no one would go against the Cross family for me.

Just when I thought I’d die under those blue lights, the surface broke.

A powerful arm wrapped around my waist and hauled me out.

I lay on the marble floor, choking and coughing, lights swimming in my vision.

But I smelled that familiar scent. Cold cedar, cigarette smoke, and a faint trace of blood.

Nico.

He’d pulled me out, then let go. No, dropped me.

I was soaked, shivering so hard my teeth chattered.

I looked up to say thank you.

And met his eyes, cold, full of disgust.

He stood over me like I was a piece of trash that had no business being on Moretti marble.

Water dripped from his hard jaw.

He tore off the cashmere coat I’d made for him and threw it aside.

Then, in front of the whole room of guests, capos, enforcers, and all those women waiting for a show, he said:

“Don’t stain the Moretti marble.”

Silence.

Then Vivienne and her friends laughed, like they’d finally gotten the ending they wanted.

I lay on the cold white marble, the water spreading around me like a stain.

It didn’t hurt. Not really.

I just suddenly realized that seven years of tiptoeing, seven years of hoping, seven years of walking on eggshells, had all been one giant joke.

I pushed myself up on frozen arms.

I didn’t look at anyone.

I walked, step by step, out of that suffocating estate.

In that moment, I finally understood.

Nico had saved my life.

But he could never give me a home.